Rage in Appalachia
by Jcooks
Summary: Story set in the Appalachia about a young soldier who goes back to bury his father and finds a whole heritage he knows nothing about. Using the Werewolf: Apocalypse setting. First time I've ever published on here so if I screw something up I apologize in advance.
1. Chapter 1

"Private Raven! Front and center!" A voice bellowed down the barracks hallway. A head poked out of a door frame about halfway down the hallway then the rest of the body stepped on to the white tiled floor.

"Yes Sar'nt! What's going on?" The reply belonged to a boy maybe about eighteen or nineteen years old. Short cropped black hair in a low-fade style haircut, sharp blue eyes, strong jawline, smooth cheeks without a hint of five o'clock shadow, and a complexion that was somewhere between pale white and bronzed copper.

"First Sergeant wants to see you in his office"

"Roger, Sar'nt. Moving," Was all of Raven's reply. He stepped briskly down the barracks hallway, knocked sharply on a half open metal door and snapped the position of parade-rest.

"Yeah! Enter!"

Raven stepped in to the carpeted floor of his First Sargent's office. A small statured black man with a cleanly shaved head was sitting in a large black leather chair behind an even larger desk. Raven snapped back to parade rest.

The First Sergeant looked up from his lap top and leaned back in his huge chair. "You mind telling me what the fuck is going on with your family, Private?" He began.

Raven's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what you mean First Sergeant."

"Sit down, Evan." The black man's tone softened. As Raven sat down in the chair in front of the wooden desk the First Sergeant began. "I have to say, I am a little disappointed in you. You didn't tell anyone in the chain of command that there was shit going on with your family. I got a red cross message today." He grabbed a single sheet of paper out of the many around his lap top. "There's no fucking easy way to say this so I'm just going to say it." The black man with the shiny head paused. "Your father passed away yesterday." He paused to let the gravity and weight of what he had just said to the young Private sink in. The First Sergeant waited for a reaction. If there was one, he couldn't tell. "Son, you ok?"

Raven shook his head slightly side to side. "I barely knew the man. I have very few memories of him. My mother left him with me when I was about six. After my mom…well after a few things my grandmother on her side raised me till she passed and I joined up."

There was some sympathy behind the First Sergeants eyes. "Right. Well that being said, some asshole from the BIA, whatever the fuck that is, called the battalion Sergeant Major. You need to go back to the reservation and settle your father's estate. You are going to be on a plane out of Raleigh today, emergency leave, all that happy horseshit."

Raven nodded. "Roger, First Sergeant."

"Take however much time you need, son. You are a damn fine paratrooper. Go handle this shit, bury what you gotta bury and come back here whole." The First Sergeant leaned forward, withdrew his wallet from his back pocket and peeled out a few hundred dollar bills. "Here's some plane ticket money. Billy from ops is on stand-by to drive you to the airport. He ain't coming back till he sees you get on that plane to West Virginia."

Raven strode out of the airport with his green army duffel over his shoulder. He walked over to a short line of cabs and got in the first one. "Center of town," He told the man and leaned back on the cracked vinyl of the back seat. Evan never thought he'd ever be headed back to this place. His memory of it was very faint. A mother too drunk or too hungover to feed him. Burning himself on the wood stove trying to heat the one room house. Going to school with only a bag of chips for his lunch. Kids at school calling him names like half-breed and half-red. Fights on the playground almost every day. Black eyes that his mother never noticed. He glanced out the cab window to break his train of thought.

They drove by the trailer parks first. Single and double wides all in neat rows and all with signs of rust and disrepair. Many had two cars parked alongside of them with one in obviously not drivable condition and one held together by rust, duct tape, grey bond-o and a prayer. Some had kids in the patches of grass and dirt playing on the ground. They wore cutoff jeans, dirty pro sports team shirts and faded, second hand gym wear. Dirt covered their hands and faces. None of them wore a smile.

The rows of houses were next. Faded brick, chipping paint and slouching porches with sagging roofs were the order of the day. The grass grew tall in some of the yards and long weeds popped up in the cracks in the sidewalks. About every third house had a foreclosure noticed stapled on the front door and boarded windows to match. The windows that weren't boarded were smashed and broken. It was as if almost every house was tired and just said,"I give up on this place."

A few houses had people sitting on the front porch or in the yard on folding aluminum chairs. Men and women alike drank from bottles in paper bags and had cigarettes hanging from the corners of their mouths. The men wore white shirts that almost weren't white anymore from tobacco spit and barely fit over their growing beer bellies. The women had long, scraggly, unkempt hair and wrinkles that aged them beyond their years.

Evan handed the cabbie the money for the fare and stepped out on to what was left of Main Street. Two stop lights controlled the traffic flow, which at this moment was a rusted out Camry, a Civic faded beyond its original red and an F-150 from the Vietnam era. About half of the shops and stores along the street showed signs of life. The others were boarded up, had no lights, or just a broken front window. Almost all had signage that was in desperate need of repair.

He walked down the street and stepped into the one with a simple plastic sign that just read "Funeral Home". The bell attached to the door rang gently as Evan stepped in. A man in his early twenties in a poorly fitting, cheap black suit greeted him.

"How may I help you, sir?"

"Yeah, since this is the only funeral home I can find on his half empty street I figured you were it. My father passed recently and I think you have his remains." Evan shifted from one foot to the other uneasily and adjusted the duffel strap on his shoulder. This place felt strange to him and it just _smelled_ funny but he couldn't quite place it. "His name was William Raven."

"What is your relation to the deceased?"

"I'm his son. Evan Raven."

The mortician smiled with a mouth full of crooked, yellowed teeth. "Yes sir. He was brought in just a few days ago. We have already prepared the body for burial, if it pleases you."

Evan furrowed his eyebrows, almost scowling. That was a weird choice of words. "Um yeah, that's fine. Can I see him?"

"Yes, that is agreeable." The mortician clasped his hands in front of him, turned around and led Raven through a door into the back room. Here the floor was white tile with strong fluorescent lights glaring off of stainless steel. The weird smell was stronger here and it wasn't just the smell of formaldehyde or dead things. It was something else that was burning just at the edges of Evan's consciousness. Something from a very faded memory that he still couldn't place.

The mortician stepped up to a set of three large metal drawers and pulled at the middle one. There was his father.

The few memories of his father flashed through his mind like faded polaroids. The soft chanting and rocking after he awoke from a nightmare. Sweet smelling smoke wafting over him with rhythmic humming while his father thought he was asleep. A small rattle with strange writing and glyphs that he didn't understand.

Evan looked down on the man he barely knew, looking over his features and recognizing some of his own. The strong jawline, the black hair the dominant cheek bones. But his father's skin was several shades darker than his, a deep, red copper exposing his full Native American heritage. There was some fine wrinkles along the brow and at the corners of his eyes but all in all his father didn't appear in old age or to be in very poor health, even as a corpse.

"What was the cause of death?" Evan asked.

"The County coroner said that his heart gave out as he slept. The grocer found him in the bed of his cabin when he was making his weekly delivery. I have the death certificate here if you should choose to peruse it."

"No, that's fine. No need. I will need a casket or coffin and my father transported up to his old house. I plan to bury him there on his land."

The young mortician smiled again. "As you wish. We have quite the assortment of fine casket with many luxurious linings to choose from. May I recommend cherry wood with red velvet?"

Evan chuckled. "No, you may not. What's your cheapest one? A pine box?"

"Yes sir."

"That will do. That's the one he would want anyway." Evan made the final arrangements with the mortician, paid him and stepped back out on to Main Street. He started walking towards the sign at the end of the street labeled "Grocer" and noticed an old, rusty pickup truck with a "FOR SALE" sign. He stepped in to the bar right next to the truck for sale.

The inside was a dim place full of cracked lime green tile and plastic chairs. There were two skinny men in dirty jeans, torn shirts and mesh trucker hats at the small pool table. A few overweight old men with grey, grizzled beards sat at the worn down bar with an even more over weight, bespectacled barman pouring them some bottom shelf whiskey. Hank Williams was playing softly over the jukebox. Every bar patron looked up at Evan when he walked in.

"Saw the truck for sale out front. Wanted to talk to the owner about buying it."

The men at the bar turned back to their rot-gut whiskey. The two men at the pool table kept looking at him. "It ain't fer sale," One of the bearded men at the bar replied.

"That's funny because usually a "for sale" sign means something is well, for sale," Evan shifted his weight to his other foot.

"It ain't fer sale to no fucking half-bred like you, boy." The old man speaking to him turned back to his glass, almost daring Evan to make a move at him in this place, a place that might as well be his home, a place full of his friends.

That was it. That was the word. The insult he had heard almost every day of his life in this small, Appalachian town. That word felt like a scab that was ripped off a wound that never quite healed. The rage he always felt by being called that stirred in his gut. Evan took a deep breath. Closed his eyes. Not here. No rage. Keep it under control.

"Well fuck you then. Would've been an easy couple hundred bucks to keep your glass full of shitty whiskey." Evan shrugged, turned around and walked out of the bar. He was about half a block further toward the grocery store when he heard them.

"Hey boy! Half-breed!"

Evan turned around to see one of the old men and one of the pool players walking toward him. The pool player still had his cue in hand.

"I thought my "fuck you" reply pretty much concluded our business negotiations," Evan replied coolly. He shifted his weight to his right leg and adjusted the green army duffel on his right shoulder.

"Smartass," The old man was face to face with Evan now. Pool cue was just off to his right. "Looks like we got a rare breed here. One o' them educated half-redskins." Pool Cue just nodded and spit tobacco juice on the cracked sidewalk.

That was it. They had pushed him too far. Said one thing too many. Now he had to feed his anger, his rage, before he lost control and it controlled him. Evan grinned in reply to the old man's racial insults. He dropped his shoulders and swung his green duffel into Pool Cue, all his weight behind it. Surprised by Evan's speed Pool Cue hit the pavement hard with a groan. The old man was swinging a mean right cross toward Evan's face. Evan blocked the punch with his left arm meeting the inside of the old man's elbow and swung back with a huge right cross. It hit the old man squarely in the mouth and nose. As the old man staggered from the unexpected power of the blow Evan followed up with a nasty, left elbow to his face. The old man hit the ground like someone had sucked it up from underneath him.

Evan stepped on his neck, careful to not use all his body weight and crush his wind pipe. He just didn't want him getting up while he finished business. Evan bent down and grabbed the pool cue from the cracked pavement. He snapped it in half over his other leg. Using the weighted end he cracked the still prone skinny guy in the face. Twice. Hard. Evan was sure he felt something break.

As both his would be racist attackers were lying there Evan went through the old man's pockets, found the truck keys and a few wrinkled bills. He looked up to notice another truck across the street. It was full of men about his age, all in ratty, torn clothing and all Native American. He nodded at them and received nothing but blank stares in return. He threw his green duffel in the bed of the pickup, got in the cab, started it up, and shifted the creaky old truck into gear. He started the drive up to his father's house.


	2. Chapter 2

He wasn't sure how he remembered where his father's house was, just that he did. Evan steered the truck carefully off the state route signs and onto an unmarked gravel and dirt road. He was able to relax now, windows rolled down, cool autumn air blowing into his face. He enjoyed his mountainous surroundings. The trees were starting to change and covering the foothills and mountains in a spectacular motely of red, gold and orange.

FUCK! He slammed his right hand hard on the plastic steering wheel. The truck almost skidded off the gravel road. He pulled his hand back and glanced at it. Still trembling. Why did those country ass redneck fucks have to push his buttons? They should have just sold him the truck for a few hundred bucks' cash and left it at that. He had been dealing with his bad temper his entire life. It had started when he lived here and was in elementary school. A coal miner's son stole the cherry pie he bought from the cafeteria vending machine. He had saved for that for a week with any spare change he could find. He had been planning to make it his lunch that day. So Evan smashed the boy's metal lunch box over his face till his eye bled. Another time three boys were calling him names in class when the teachers back was turned. He hit them all in head with his desk chair. The best part of all of this was when the teachers had no idea what to do with him. He would be sitting in his usual spot in the principal's office and hear them. "I tried calling his mother, no answer." "Oh, she's probably passed out drunk somewhere." "What about his father?" "Oh that crazy Indian lives up in the mountains. He doesn't even have a phone."

His grandmother came and scooped him up one day out of the blue. She just picked him up at school. They didn't even go back to his mother's trailer to get any clothes or what he had that might have passed for a toy. She had something about "no grandson of hers would be in foster care" and that was that. She put him in the front seat of her faded blue Chevy Caprice, handed him a ham sandwich and started the drive to her home in upstate New York. The first time he lost his temper at the new school in New York she picked him up at the office, gave him a huge and took him home. When they walked in the front door of the house she turned him around, grabbed him by his shoulders so he couldn't run and squatted so her face was level with his. He could still remember her blue eyes and careworn expression beating more guilt into him than he had ever known.

"You have to learn control." She pointed at his stomach. "You can't let that beast get the better of you every time." She taught him to breathe a certain way to calm down the burning fury in his gut. How to close his eyes and go to a different place in his mind. A place where his rage, fury and anger weren't allowed. A place of calm.

Using what she had taught him, he made it longer and longer without an outburst. Finally there was some normalcy in Evans life. He had lunches to take to school. Hot dinner every night. Friends. Trips with the boy scouts. Laughter. Girls when he hit the right age. A part time job and a car he paid for with his own earnings. He used what she taught him to make it through Army Basic training with ease. Same for the first time he jumped out of a plane in Airborne school. Then his grandmother passed. Massive heart attack. Ever since he had been to her funeral and watched her casket lowered into the ground it was harder and harder to control that beast clawing his way up from his gut.

As the truck cleared the hill Evan looked down on his father's place in the small valley. Trees had been cleared out of the tiny valley to make room for the myriad buildings. The main structure was the house. It had started as a one room affair with fireplace and chimney in the middle. It had been expanded to a two storey house with wood siding made from the local trees and windows with shutters. What looked to be the newest addition of solar panels seemed out of place on the wood shingled roof. There were a few other out buildings in the valley: a barn, a storage shed for tools, a small sawmill and a shed with a stream running through it that came from the high hills. All were obviously made with only hand tools and skill. Two neatly plowed fields with dark black dirt were on the backside of the house.

Evan parked the truck at the end of the gravel road and stepped out. He took a moment to take it all in. He looked up to the sky, arms spread, letting the sun's rays hit his face. He breathed deep. Sweet, clean mountain air filled his nostrils. For some reason this place almost felt more home to him than anywhere he had been before.

When he looked down from the sky he noticed them. Not really sure how he didn't before. A small group of wolves was at the edge of his father's land, right near the tree line. Five of them were grey, like the Timberwolves he had always read about growing up. Strange, he thought he read about all the wolves being pushed out of this area long ago. There was one of the wolves that was different. It had fur that was so black it looked red in the sun. All six were looking right at him. Evan smiled. The five grey wolves turned their heads and loped off back into the surrounding woods. The black one stayed just a bit longer, his yellow eyes directly meeting Evan's gaze. Finally the black one turned and trotted off to meet up with the rest of the pack.

Evan shook his head to himself as he stepped up to the shed with the stream running through it. Opening the shed door he found the stream running through a large machine that looked kind of like a generator he saw in the army. He threw a few switches, not really know what the hell he was doing. He turned around to see the lights in the main house coming on. Satisfied, he closed the shed door behind him, grabbed his duffel from his new truck and walked toward the main house.

The front door of the house was unlocked. Evan let himself in. The house was well kept and well furnished with handmade wooden furniture. The kitchen was small but functional with both a wood stove and a gas. Evan opened a cupboard here and there then the fridge. Seemed the place was still pretty well stocked. He headed through the kitchen and through another door going down to the basement. The wooden steps creaked on his way down. The basement still had creaky wooden floor and the only source of light was a naked bulb hanging from the basement ceiling.

The walls of the cellar were full of wooden shelves that were lined with various home canned goods. Carrots, tomatoes, corn, green beans were all neatly in rows on their own separate shelves. The cans were all labeled in his father's tight script. Some were labeled as recently as last week. There was a chest freezer in the corner that was quietly humming along. Inside Evan found pounds and pounds of venison, turkey, duck and bear, all in vacuum sealed bags, all neatly labeled and organized. Evan shut the light off and headed upstairs.

The top level of the house was pretty unremarkable. Two bedrooms, bathroom, everything organized, clean and in its place. His father's bed was certainly only big enough for one man and covered in a beautiful handmade quilt. There was a double barreled break-action shotgun leaning against his father's nightstand. Evan picked it up, checked the breech, noted it was loaded and carried it back downstairs with him.

As he walked back down to the main level of the house he went to lean the shotgun to the side of the door he noticed something peculiar. He wasn't sure how he missed it before. There were large glyphs carved into the wooden logs of the house that made up the door frame. The glyphs looked primal and savage, as if it was the language of a very primitive tribe. The glyphs were too large to be carved by any kind of animal but the work didn't look to Evan like it had been done with a knife or tool. It looked as though the writing had been carved into the wood by some ancient, huge animal. Evan touched one with his forefinger, feeling the rough grooves and bent in for a closer look. Something was tugging on the edges of his brain and he couldn't place it. Like the glyphs were notes to a song he had heard forever ago and the melody was starting to play.

He shook his head and stood back up. Glancing out the window he noticed dusk was starting to set in. He grabbed a couple of logs from the pile by the wood stove and started a fire in the cast iron belly of the beast. After the fire was going he grabbed a fat venison steak from the freezer down stairs and set it to thaw out in the sink. He brewed up some sweet tea in an old mason jar, picked up some tomatoes, corn and beans from the root cellar and got an old cast iron pan heating up on the wood stove. He seared the venison chop hard on both sides and barely medium-rare in the middle. He threw the steak, probably enough for two people, on a plate with the vegetables and went to sit outside on his father's front porch.

He sat in an old, creaky wooden chair and enjoyed his venison, listening to the sounds of the mountains he left so long ago. His mind drifted to wondering how things were back at Bragg. It was a Friday night so the boys in his platoon were probably out at some shitty dive bar chasing North Carolinas finest trailer trash. Joining the Army after his grandmother's death was the best choice he could have made. His grades in high school were ok but not great enough to get him into any fancy college. Not like he had the money for that kind of thing anyway. What the hell would he have gone to college for? None of that garbage they taught him really interested him enough that he wanted to do four more years of it. No, the Army had been the place for him. Things were FAIR. If someone got new boots, he got new boots and that was that. If once guy screwed up and lost out on dinner chow, they all lost out on dinner chow. That suited Evan just fine.

The sounds of the mountains and the woods were starting to come back to Evan. The crickets, the owls, the woodpeckers were all playing their own songs. He heard a wolf howl in the far hills and another reply a few seconds later on the other side of his cove. This continued for a few more minutes, as if they were talking with each other across the hills and valleys that his father had always called home. He felt like he began to lose himself in their conversation.

Evan got up from the chair. He wasn't really sure how long he had been sitting on the porch but the moon was now high overhead. Its full shape was illuminating everything in the valley and casting strange shadows. He headed back in the house and threw his dishes in the sink. He grabbed a poncho liner from his green duffel. Affectionately known as a "woobie" in infantryman parlance it was essentially a large space blanket that many viewed as possible the warmest and lightest ever. He curled up underneath the warmth of the wood stove and fell fast asleep.

Evan woke up the next morning to someone pounding on the front door. He got up, wrapping the woobie around him against the cool chill in the cabin and opened the door. On the porch was a short man, vaguely plump and round. His face was small and round with friendly eyes and a beard that was trying to fully grow in but couldn't. He wore jeans, a white cotton t-shirt to conceal the beginnings of his beer belly, black plastic framed glasses and a mesh trucker hat that read "West Virginia is for Lovers". His arms were full of crates containing foodstuffs and he had been kicking on the log door with his worn work boots.

"Well aren't you your father's son," He began after eyeing Evan over. He stepped in to the house and made way to the kitchen with his arms full. "You and your father have the same build, and the same face. Not the same eyes though. Thems something different."

"Um, can I help you with something? "Evan asked, very uncertain of who the hell this guy was who just invited himself in.

"Oh gosh, yes. I'm sorry." He set the crates of food down on the kitchen counter. "I'm Sean. Sean Husk. I run the grocery down the way in town." He extended his hand. Evan shook it. "Your father was a good friend o' mine and a regular customer. He wasn't much for heading down in to town so I would deliver some odds and ends to him out here 'bout once a week or so." He patted the worn wooden crates behind him. "Got some bread my wife made, some milk from the Sutter's cows, eggs from the Smith's chickens for ya. Even some o' my grand pappys shine." Sean held up a mason jar full of clear liquid. He shook it hard. "Oooooweee! You see that bead there?" He pointed to the buddle pattern in the glass jar. "That's how you know you got the good stuff."

Evan held up a hand. "Thanks but I don't drink. Evil white man fire water doesn't mix too well with the Cherokee in me." Sean shrugged and set the jar back in the crate. "So you knew my father pretty well then?" Evan asked.

"Sure did. Like I'd said, come up here 'bout once a week or so. I'd drop off some groceries, we'd shoot the shit for a little while. Sometimes I'd give him a quick hand with things around the land here and I'd head back in."

Evan's face grew a little more concerned. "So there was no indication that he was sick in anyway? That he wasn't feeling well? That something was wrong?"

Sean's smiled disappeared and a sad look crept across his face. "I was the one that found him." Sean shook his head and removed his hat. "It was so strange. Usually he would already be up and about outside, takin' care o' this or that. As I came over the ridge I didn't see him out front so I walked on in the house. Found 'im still upstairs, still in his bed. He was so cold to the touch." Sean shivered at the thought. "The coroner said 'twas his heart jus' gave out in his sleep."

"Yeah, you know what's funny is how I feel when I look around this place." Evan ditched the blanket and grabbed a white cotton shirt from his duffel. He shrugged it on. "I mean, I'm certainly no detective but I don't think a man whose heart was about to give out would have been hunting and canning just a few days before he died."

Sean glanced down at the floor and his hat in his hands. "My grand mammy always told me stories 'bout evil spirits that come in the middle of the night. Banshee wailers like. Suck the life right out o' a man. I never paid such tales no mind but you never know. Strange things have always happened up in these here hills."

"Well Sean, it's been good to meet you. Thanks for taking care of my father," Evan extended his hand again. They shook. "I'll see you next week?"

Sean nodded. "Yeah, that sounds good." Evan opened the door and they stepped out into the sunshine of a new day. Evan could already hear a woodpecker going in the distance.

Another car was already making its way down the ridge and long dirt driveway. It was a black Crown Vic, just like the cops used but with rust spots forming on the front panels. The cop insignia on the sides had been covered with black spray paint. It was being driven by a Native American woman with long, straight, black hair.

"Seems I'll have plenty of visitors this morning," Evan said.

"That there's Nola Oakheart. She's a Cherokee from that small rez a ways over. Don't know too much about her. Those Cherokee pretty much try'n keep to themselves like yer pappy did here." Sean got in the cab of his truck and kept talking to Evan through the open window. "Oh! 'For I forget. Those two yokels you tooled up in town? One o' em is the Sherriff's nephew an' the other is his Great-Uncle or some shit. Either way, Sheriff is pretty pissed that they both ended up in the county hospital lookin' like they did. Don't be surprised if he makes his way up here to ya."

Evan smiled. "I have no idea what you are referring to Sean but thanks for the friendly advice."

Sean chuckled and started his truck. As he drove back up the drive he extended a friendly wave to the rusted ex-cop car. The wave was not returned. The driver got out of the car. She was tall for a woman and had a pretty thin frame. She wore brown leather cowboy boots with tight jeans tucked into the top. She wore a leather belt that looked handmade and a black shirt. She wore a white bone choker on her neck that made her hair look even blacker. Beneath the worn leather jacket she was wearing Evan could make out part of a shoulder holster. One side looked to be holding a pistol. On the other side he saw a massive bowie knife with an antler handle. For some reason the knife made him more uneasy than the pistol. She stood there for a minute, fist resting on a cocked hip and took a long, hard stare at Evan. Her face was a study in severity. She had very attractive facial features but they were hardened by the furrow in her eyebrows, the clenched jaw and the anger in her eyes.

Evan decided to break the ice. "So, let me guess. Your Native American name is….Resting-bitch-face."  
Her scowl deepened. "No Raven. You know who I am." Her reply was terse. Full of indignation.

"Well Sean told me your name was Nola Oakheart or some other shit like that but that's about all I know. Also, you didn't wave at him. That's sure not very neighborly."

"No white man in these hills will ever be my neighbor. They stole this," She gestured around at the trees and the sky, "from us. I will never treat them as friends, only trespassers."

"You know, the rez back there in the hills I remember was poor on many things; blind hate wasn't one of them. Seems they still have plenty of it left." Evan turned around to head back into the house. The more he pushed her buttons and the more upset he got her the quicker he would find out what she was really about.

"Your father was a great man. He was an important part of our tribe. He was an elder. His voice was respected around the council fire. It seems his son is, well, how do you whites put it? An apple that has fallen far from the tree."

Evan laughed loudly, the sound echoing off of the hills around him. "Oh you mean the man that was so great that he was never around? The man that was so great he let my alcoholic, abusive mother raise me in a shitty trailer on your shitty rez? The great elder that let me go to school and beat on kids till they bled? Yeah, sounds like a real winner. Great guy. How about you spare me the noble savage, red pride, evil white man bullshit and tell me why you are trespassing on what is now MY land."

Nola let out a deep, guttural groan, much deeper than Evan expected from someone her size. She clenched her fists, turned around and opened the car door. She paused and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She slammed the car door shut and turned back around to face Evan. "Don't you want to know why your father died? Don't you want to know what killed him?"

Evan turned and started to walk back to the house without saying a word. About three steps in he did a quick about face and held up one finger and opened his mouth as if to say something. Instead of running his wise mouth for once in his life he just got in the car.

The rusty old cop car cruised down the backwoods road, the struts creaking sharply with each bump or rock. The first five minutes of the ride had been spent in silence. Evan was the first to break it.

"You always walk around carrying like that?" Evan nodded toward her pistol and Bowie knife.

She growled quietly. "You always ask such dumb questions?"

Evan shifted in his seat, moving a little closer to the door. "No big deal lady. It's just when people are walking around looking like they are ready for the zombie apocalypse a guy is going to ask a few questions."

She actually laughed a little. "Strange things happen up in the mountains some times. You have to be ready for what might come your way. Especially when you are a young Cherokee lady."

"Ha!" Evan laughed loudly. "I bet no one has dared to call you a lady in a long time."

She laughed a little again. "So you really don't remember me at all?"

Evan shook his head. "Nah. There's not a lot I remember from those days. Mainly the bad shit and how awful my mother was." Evan shrugged. "Not a whole lot that I remember from that time makes me want to go digging in my head for the rest."

A smile crept on the corners of her mouth as she guided the car around another switchback. "I was playing with my dolls in the dirt underneath a tree you were climbing. Jacob Morningkill came over and ripped the heads off of two of them. When I started to cry you jumped down from the tree and punched him." She chuckled. "He had such a bad black eye. He ran off and wouldn't tell anyone what happened because he didn't want anyone to know that you beat him up."

"Sounds like something I would have done at the time. If that's the main thing you remember about me why the thousand yard stare back at the house?"

"Sometimes when people like us leave the ancestral lands of our people, our home, for a long time it really changes them. And not in a good way. I wasn't sure what kind of man I was going to be looking at when I pulled in."

"Well leaving this place worked out for me." Evan lightly scoffed. "Worked out to three solid meals a day, a bed to sleep in, and clothes on my back. Someone that cared about me was an added bonus."

A twinge of sorrow showed in the corner of Nola's eyes. "I think your father cared a lot more about you than you realize. A lot of us were concerned when your grandmother just picked you up like that and took you away from here. Your mother's reputation was pretty well known around these parts. People were worried that her mother was pretty much the same."

"My mother is who he is because she's bent on being that way. That's just how it is. Her mother doesn't have much to do with it." Evan paused. "I'm glad my grandmother got tipped off from an old friend in town. Said I was one incident away from being put in foster care. Judging by how things are around here that doesn't say too much for how what my future would have been. She said picking me up like that had something to do with the crooked court system here and some other legal shit." Evan looked out the dirty car window. "With how great she was to me I pretty much have to believe her. She was an amazing woman. I miss her every day."

"Well, it seems like she did an ok job so far."

"Pfft. Gee, thanks."

"A ten minute conversation isn't going to tell me everything I need to know about you Raven. It's going to take a bit more than that to really judge you."

They drove on the dirt road for about five more minutes then turned on to a two lane paved road. The car hummed along the small state road for about ten more miles and Nola turned onto another unmarked road that seemed to wind its way through the trees to the top of another ridgeline.

"How the hell do you people know where you are going around here? There isn't a damn street sign or marker anywhere? Evan asked.

"You are such a city boy." Nola laughed at him. "I've been running through these hills since I was a teenager. I know them like I the back of my hand." She stopped the car and the top of the ridge and put it in park. She grabbed a pair of binoculars from the glove box and got out. As Evan did the same he made his way around to her side of the car. "This is why your father is dead." She motioned to the area directly in front of her and down the ridge and handed him the binoculars.

All around Evan he could see the tops of the trees and the craggy peaks of the hills and mountains. The fall colors of the changing trees stretched all the way to the horizon. Except for the spot at the bottom which Nola had pointed to. Here the trees had been felled and cleared. There was a gaping hole that had been carved in the rock that led down to the depths beneath what was once pristine wilderness. The hole looked like a gaping, jagged wound that had been carved with nothing but a dull knife. Men and machines were everywhere in the clearing, the sound of them drowning out the songs of nature. The workers below busied themselves driving mini-ATVs back and forth from the mine shaft with some carrying carts full of stone. Some were operating massive drills that were plunging into the mountain side. Other men were busy loading tractors trailers with carts of stone or drums that were simply labeled "HAZARDOUS MATERIAL" in big, bold letters. There was a trailer set up as an office with two men on the front steps wearing hard hats talking about things around the job site, pointing and yelling instructions. The trailer had a logo painted on the side that read "Endron" in bright green letters. Evan also counted ten men armed with shotguns. Two were stationed at the main road into the site and the rest on patrol around the wood line. The whole scene filled Evan with a sense of anger, pain, hurt and confusion that he hadn't felt his entire life. It was as if someone reached down and pulled up every slight, every injury, every feeling of hurt and despair he ever had and smacked him across the face with them. He turned, bent to his knee and threw up. Nola didn't seem surprised.

"Stings doesn't it?" She let him catch his breath then offered him a hand. She helped pull him to his feet. "In the city hall meetings they told the townsfolk, the white people, that this," She gestured to the abomination at her feet, "Would bring jobs and prosperity to their town. There are no extra jobs. There is no extra money. All the white people are too drunk, too high or too meth'd out to care. There is just their corporate bonuses, another gaping hole in our Great Mother, and an extra zero on their bottom line at the end of the year."

Evan coughed and tried to catch his breath. His heart was still racing and his head pounding. He shook his head trying to clear it. "Can we get out of here, please?"

Nola was still looking down below with a terribly sad look on her face. It was as if someone had taken her dolls again and just kept tearing their little heads off over and over again. She wiped the corner of her cheek. Evan wasn't sure if she was wiping away a tear or not. "Yeah. Let's go."

The first part of their drive back was quiet and still. It was like they were leaving the wake of a friend who was killed in a car accident last week. They were numb. In pain. The full force of the thing hadn't set in yet.

"What was that back there?" Evan asked. "Why did I react like that? Have you seen that before?"

"Yeah. From time to time. I think you are just a little more in tune with Gaia than you think you are. I think for a moment she was reaching out to you. I think you felt a little bit of her pain," Nola replied. Evan could tell the place weighed heavy on her soul as well.

"Easy with the metaphysical shamanism my noble Cherokee," Evan said. "I'm just a city boy that went to public school. What did any of this have to do with my father's death? Pretty sure he didn't vomit himself to death."

Anger flashed across her face. She didn't like that bit of humor. "So you joke about everything? Is nothing sacred to you?"

"Only to keep from crying," Evan said, straight-faced. "So what happened with my pops?"

"He was at the forefront of getting rid of those Endron assholes. We would sneak down there at night and sabotage their equipment. Stage protests down at city hall. Anything he could to get them out of here. He was working with another friend of ours in the next county over trying to get things done from the legal end. I thought we were actually making some serious progress. The last time I saw him he mentioned a couple of corporate goons in suits had happened by his place. He kicked them out, scared them off. Two days later that grocery guy found him dead in his bed."

Evan frowned. "I see what you mean. It would have to be some pretty slick corporate work to kill a man in his bed two days after you were there."

"Stop. It's all connected. Can't you see it? There are other things at work here. Other forces. Things that are just a little beyond the sight of a half-white city boy who left his home land way too young."

Evan huffed. The car pulled back down into his fathers' cove. "Well this half-white city boy has had enough for today." He got out of the car and started walking toward the house.

"How long are you staying?" She yelled toward him through an open car window.

"Long enough to bury my father. Then I'm getting the hell out of here," He said back not even turning around.

"God, you really are an asshole," She yelled and hit the gas on the cop car. In a spray of dirt and rocks she was gone.

Evan found a long, pine coffin sitting on the cabins front porch. A manila envelope was attached to the front that contained his father's death certificate. "Well pops," Evan said a loud. "Looks like they dropped you off without ceremony. Good thing because you probably didn't want one."

Evan walked over to the tool shed and grabbed a shovel. He found a decent spot behind the house that was under an old oak tree. He dragged his father's coffin around to the side of the tree and started digging.

"You know Dad, it really wasn't that easy growing up around these parts and I kind of wonder why you were kind of a no-show. Grandma said once that I never lived with you because of some weird, sick, child custody shit in the courts. I can buy that. At least you could have stayed in touch with me though, you know? Maybe a phone call once a month? Maybe a card at Christmas or on my birthday?" Evan stopped digging for a second and looked at the pine coffin. "But no, you were out here in west bumblefuck playing a cross of hippie, noble savage and Captain Planet." Evan started digging again. "I wish I could tell you I was really sore about it but I'm not. My life wasn't that bad in upstate New York. I was away from this crazy place and things were pretty ok.

"Just being out here makes me feel like I have this whole part of me that I haven't even discovered yet though." Evan was digging pretty quickly and dirt was flying from the hole. He had the army to thank for that. "To be honest, I'm not entirely comfortable with it. Everything I know about the Cherokee part of me I learned from books, movies and the internet. Those aren't exactly the best sources, you know? I spend a day and a half out here and it's like the scales are falling off my eyes a little bit. Like I'm seeing into parts of myself that I don't' really know yet." Evan shook his head. A few hours with Nola he was spewing off spiritual world bullshit too. He was waist deep in the hole now. Evan turned toward his father and leaned on the shovel. "I wish I could stick around. I wish I had more time." Evan paused. "I wish I had known you when you were alive." The digging started again. "But I've got army shit to do back in army land. I don't know much about you but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want me getting in trouble for being AWOL."

Then he saw them again. There were more this time. Four grey timber wolves were at the edge of the wood line. The large black one with yellow eyes was back. The black one was flanked by one Evan hadn't seen before. This wolf was just as large as the black one but its fur was completely white just like freshly fallen snow. Evan gave them a friendly wave and a smiled back. He didn't care that a pack of wolves was sitting about fifty meters off in the trees. He couldn't remember ever hearing about a pack of wolves attacking and killing a man just for digging a hole. He mentally shrugged it off. He couldn't explain it but the pack of wolves didn't make him feel uneasy.

Once he finished digging he found some old pulleys and rope in the tool shed. He lashed up the coffin with the rope and rigged the pulleys and rope up through the old oak. He pulled and maneuvered the rope gently lowering the coffin into the freshly dug grave. He bowed his head, had a moment of silence then started topping off the grave with dirt. When he was finished he put the tools back in the shed. He headed back into the cabin, put away the groceries Sean had dropped off earlier and got the wood stove going. Evan wasn't sure why he told Sean he'd see him next week. He planned to leave tomorrow. He'd just stop at his shop on the way out of town and let him know.

Evan cooked himself some dinner and ate on the porch again. The wolves were out in the hills again that night once the moon was full overhead. Their howls tonight seemed echoed back and forth through the mountains and ravines. They had a sad, mournful tone that reminded Evan of they played amazing grace on the bagpipes back at Bragg. He grabbed his dishes and headed inside. He tossed the dishes in the sink, grabbed his woobie and curled up on the floor in the same spot as the night before. He was fast asleep in minutes.


	3. Chapter 3

The noise they were making outside of the cabin woke him. Evan lay there in the darkness for a minute in silence. He could hear muffled voices just outside the window across the room. The faint sound of a spade scraping at the dirt accompanied them. He couldn't tell what time it was. There was no digital clock in the cabin and his watch was across the room on the kitchen counter. By the looks of the light coming through the kitchen window it seemed as though the full moon was still overhead. Evan slowly moved to his feet being careful to not make the floorboards creak. Clad in only his jeans from the day before he moved towards the door on the balls of his feet. He picked up the old shotgun and cocked both barrels as slowly as he could. He opened the wooden door gently, peeking through the crack first then stepping lightly out onto the front porch. In the moonlight of the cove noticed two ATVs parked at the bottom of the hill next to his stolen truck. He started to make his way around to the side of the house the voices were coming from.

He could hear more clearly now. Someone was definitely digging. He heard the sound of the spade hitting the pine box he had put in the ground just hours before. "Ooweee, looks like Imma finally be able to teach this ole redskin a lesson!"

"Quiet Jeb!" Another voice whispered fiercely. "Yer gonna wake that half-skin son o' his."

"Bah, I don't care Isiah. Let the boy come out here. I'll teach 'im good too. He deserves it for toolin' up the Sheriffs kin like he did in town."

Evan came up to the corner of the house and peered around. What he saw shocked him. Dirt was piled on the sides of the hole he had dug just hours earlier. With a crowbar in hand the one named Jeb started prying off the lid to the casket. The one named Isiah was holding the flashlight carefully illuminating their sinful deed. Evan heard the pine lid crack under the pressure of the crowbar. The lid was thrown out of the hole and landed on the fresh dirt nearby.

"Time to teach this old injun a lesson," jeb said. Evan heard the sound of jeans unzipping. "Shine the light down in here nice Isiah. I wanna see the look on this dead injuns face when I slide my meat right in his mouth."

"C'mon Jeb. Get this over with so we can gets on back over the hills. That boys gonna wake up soon." Isiah was shaking trying to hold the light steady and stay on the lookout at the same time.

"Ahhh yeaaahhh. You like that real man meat in yer mouth don't you, you dirty cherry nigger. Feels nice. Don't it?"

The shotgun blast from both barrels rang out in the clear moonlight. Jebs' chest exploded in spray of blood, tissue and bone. He fell down in the grave with his cock still in his hand and his pants around his ankles. Slow, wheezing breaths still escaped his lips. The breathing stopped. Isiah and Evan turned and stared at each other. A whippoorwill sounded off in the distance.

Isiah was out of the hole and charging at Evan faster than he would have thought possible. Isiah let out a fierce scream that was a cross between a pig squeal and dog howl. He cracked Evan hard across the face with the crowbar. Evan staggered back a few steps, trying to regain his footing and bring the shotgun up in front of him. Even though it was empty he needed something, anything in front of him to help ward Isiah off.

Isiah moved more quickly. More quickly than Evan was ready for. The redneck swung hard at Evan's knee. He felt something give and hit the ground hard. He let out a loud cry of pain. Isiah was on top of him now alternating cracks across Evans face with the crowbar and boney fist. Evan felt his lip bust open and a gash open above his eye. Evan tried a few things he could remember from his army training to get out from underneath the crazed yokel. Nothing worked. Isiah was too spindly, too spider like. His legs and weight had Evan pinned down on the damp grass and dirt.

"This is what you get fer killing my brother you dirty redskin!" Isiah yelled.

Then Evan felt it. The rage he had dealt with all his life. The fire in his belly. He felt it come rolling forth from his stomach. Images flashed through his mind like a film that was playing on high speed. His mother passed out and drunk in a corner with empty liquor bottles around her. The boy stealing his cherry pie. Nola's headless dolls in the dirt. Going to bed hungry at night. The huge gaping hole he saw in the ground yesterday. The dirty redneck defacing his father's corpse. There was no stopping the rage now. This was fury's furnace and the fire was stoked to the top.

Evan let out a howl that was half man, half wolf and pure fury. He felt his body growing and changing. His jeans split as his legs grew and were covered in fur. His chest, arms and legs all changed size and grew fur. He felt claws out of his fingertips and the shape of his skull change into that of a giant wolf man beast that was pure nightmare. His jaw was now strong and his teeth sharp.

Somehow Isiah was still on top of him. Evan reached an arm up, grabbed him by the throat and threw Isiah into the outside cabin wall. The yokel landed with a thud. He felt so strong. The strongest he could ever think of feeling in his life. Evan howled again as if he was talking to the moon and tell her of the rage in his heart. The crazed redneck was now slumped against the wooden log wall. Evan stepped toward him. He had thrown Isiah about twenty feet. It only took Evan about three strides to reach him. He picked up the redneck with one hand that was at the end of a massively muscled furry arm. He pulled the man close to his own muzzle. Evan could smell the cheap tobacco, the chemicals in cough syrup and the fear. Evan let out a low growl. That was all he could seem to manage from his own throat. The fear was plain to see in Isiah's eyes. Evan crushed the man's neck with one twist of his hand. To Evan it felt like he was just snapping dry kindling before he started a fire. He reached over with his other hand and palmed the top of the dead mans' skull. He pulled hard. Isiah's head and neck separated with a sick, wet tearing sound. Evan threw the two pieces down in disgust.

He smelled it before he saw it. It smelled of sickly sweet perfume, rotten food and death. Why could he smell everything now? It was a bastardized version of what Evan thought he might look like. It was about seven feet tall and covered in motley fur that seemed to be falling out in patches. Sloped, hunched back and gangly arms hanging almost to the damp ground. Sharp, crooked teeth were prominent in a jaw that was hanging wide open with a tongue thick with slaver lolling to the side. They eyes in the head of this cruel beast were a sickly yellow green. Those eyes seemed as if they had just been watching in the wood line for far too long.

Evan heard the sound of the whippoorwill bounce off the trees as the two huge wolf beast men stared at each other. Motely fur turned and ran. Evan gave chase. At first he was running on just two legs but found he was faster on four. He felt his body change again slightly. He was smaller now and not as strong but he was faster. This was the fastest he ever had ran. Evan was sure he would still tower over any normal wolf. He chased Motley fur through the hills and woods, over streams and through rocky ravines. He wasn't sure how far he had travelled. He just knew he had to kill this thing. It was all that was in his mind. When he lost sight of Motley fur he used his new sense of smell to pick up the trail. They ran for hours but Evan still had yet to tire.

When the moon finally set Evan had his chance. He cleared a ridge, following Motley's sickening stench and saw him running along the paved road beneath him. Evan ran and leapt. He hit Motely with the full force of his eight hundred pound dire wolf frame. The two forms rolled on the paved road. Evan came out on top. He bent his head down and tore at Motley's neck. When he lifted his head to howl Motley's windpipe made a wet thud on the black top.

The last thing Evan remembered before he passed out was truck head lights winding their way down the road towards him.


	4. Chapter 4

A bump on the road woke Evan up. He felt like he got hit by a train. He tried to remember last night but only seemed to be remembering tastes and smells. The smell of the two hillbillies. The scent of that motley furred, yellow nightmare he chased through the ravines and mountains. He ran his tongue across his teeth and lips. He thought he could still vaguely taste its blood. He remembered how that warmth felt going down his throat. It had felt so _right_. What in the hell had happened? It was like he drank too much last night and couldn't piece the whole thing together. Evan had been drunk last night, he decided, drunk on a lifetime of pain, anger and hate. Evan shuddered. He didn't want to think about what he remembered he was last night. Instead he took stock of his surroundings.

He was in the back of a rusty orange pickup truck. Where the rust began and the paint ended he couldn't really tell. He was thankful that he was covered in an old moving blanket against the early morning autumn chill. He peeked his head over the edge of the pickup bed. Even if he knew where he was the truck was moving down the mountain road way too fast for him to jump out. The driver had a strange way of driving, accelerating on the straight sections and braking at the last possible moment as the truck entered another hairpin turn. This made it quite difficult for Evan to keep his balance, let alone stand up in the back of the truck.

Evan could see the back of the driver through the cab's rear window. The man's head was huge and covered in a mess of dirty blonde hair that was tangled and somehow clumped with dirt and leaves. He was wearing jean overalls without a shirt underneath which had the effect of showing off his huge shoulders, back and copious body hair. The driver noted Evan's activity and slid open the small window.

"Oh hey thar lil' buddy!" He shouted back. Evan could make out kind eyes and a smile full of crooked teeth in the rear view mirror. "Jus' take 'er easy, ok? We'll be up at mah Mee-maws place soon. Lots o' 'scplain' gonna go on. Don't you worry." The driver closed the small window.

Evan sighed and slid his back against the back of the cab. Where ever he was going, he was along for the ride. The truck hummed a long while the driver excellently navigated the switchbacks of the mountain. The truck wound back and forth and it circles making its way slowly up the mountain. As they reached the top the fir trees cleared and Evan made out a worn down wooden house.

The roof of the house was sagging on one side and almost falling off on the other. The porch was bowed in the middle, either from age, too many people sitting on it for too long, or a combination of both. Part of the house had been painted blue once and another part red. So much of each paint was worn off that you could call the color of the house "old wood" and no one would argue with you. There was an open shed off to the side of the house full of blue plastic barrels, crates of potatoes and a pot still on prominent display. The truck came to a stop and shut off. The driver made his way out of the cab and around to the back of the truck. He lowered the tailgate.

"Well come on thar buddy." The driver slapped the lowered tailgate with a massive palm. "I ain't gonna bite you." Evan slid along the bed of the truck on the moving blanket, trying to preserve his modesty and stop shivering against the early morning chill. As Evans' feet hit the soft pine needle carpet of the clearing the driver extended his hand.

"Names' Douglas McFion. Mosta ma kin calls me Dougie." The huge hand engulfed the one Evan extended from beneath his blanket. Dougie was a huge mountain of a man befitting the mountain he called home. His arms seemed to be as big around as Evan's legs. He had a yellow beard that was as unkempt as his hair that went down to the top of his barrel chest. His smile was full and kind and full of crooked, yellow teeth.

"Evan," Was all the reply he could muster.

"I was up checkin' one o' mah other stills last night. Heard you howlin' up in them hills somethin' fierce. Figgured I'd try'n make my way to ya. Didn' want to leave my truck up there. Glad I ran across ya when I did. Who knows what woulda happened if one o' the sherrifs or his boys came across ya in the road down there."

As Evan opened his mouth to begin one of the thousand questions he had right now an elberly shrill pierced the morning air. "Whatchu doin' down thar, boy?!" The voice belonged to a woman old enough to be Evan's great grandmother. She was standing on the worn front porch. Her gait was hitched and she shuffled along the rotting wood with the help of a cane. Her back and shoulders were stooped and covered with a thin, hand knitted shaw. Underneath she wore a floral print dress and leather shoes that seemed too big for someone of her slight frame. Her facial features were dropping and lined from years of hard living in the mountains. Thin, wispy white hair made its way halfway down her back. The fine white hair still had a few orange-red streaks in it.

"Hey Mee-maw. I found this 'un in the road down yonder last night. Heard 'im howling fierce last night. Figgered we could help 'im out. I think it was his first time."

"Well hell. Whatchu wait fer? Bring 'im on up in the house. Imma fix him some food. I'm sure that poor boy is all sorts o' starved."

Dougie turned and started heading toward the house. Not really sure what in the hell was going on Evan decided to follow. He hoped he could at least get something to wear besides this smelly blanket. Dougie held the rusty aluminum screen door for him as Evan shuffled into the house. Evan just noticed Dougie wasn't wearing any shoes. Evan laughed to himself. His whole life had become so absurd in forty-eight hours.

The inside of the house was a mess. Bare wooden walls were exposed, sometimes without any actual wall but the supporting wooden studs, and sometimes there was just a wall with a massive hole in it. Various pictures and newspaper clippings were hanging, some in frames and some not but all of them were crooked. The floor was all creaky wooden floorboards with a slightly raised cement platform for the wood stove in the kitchen. The living room had an old couch that had once been floral print green and now had torn cushions with stuffing and springs poking out. There was a chair also in much the same condition. Various children toys and board games were scattered all over the floor and in various states of disrepair.

There was a staircase in front of Evan. He didn't even want to see what the top floor looked like.

The kitchen was just as bad as the living room. It looked like someone had tried to put down linoleum tile and either gave up halfway or got made and tore it up. The refrigerator was a fantastic pistachio green model from the 1947 Sears's catalog that was peeling and chipping. The wooden cabinets were all worn and beaten. Some looked like they had been attacked by a massive creature with huge bear like claws. Some of the cabinets were left open and the ones that were closed looked like they were barely hanging on. The sink was overflowing with pots, pans and dishes that were piled so high that they made their way to the floor. Evan shuffled over to a worn green Formica table next to the wood stove and sat down in a creaky aluminum and vinyl chair.

The elderly lady busied herself over the stove in a cast iron pan. A blue enameled coffee pot was going on the wood stoves range as well.

"Well I hope you don't mind Evan but I took care o' a few things fer ya," Dougie began. "Made mah way back to your father's place while you was passed out in the truck last night. Took care o' Jeb and Isiah fer ya, reburied yer pops. That way anyone happens by there this mornin' none'll be the wiser. Buried those two yahoos off in the wood line along with Chases-Babies or whatever the hell his Black Spiral name is. We been keepin' our eyes on those guys for a long time. Can't say we ever really had the chance to take care o' them last night like you did. Inbred fucks." It seemed as if Dougle would have spat if he hadn't been inside.

"Shhh Douglas!" Mee-maw turned toward them. She had a plate full of food and a cup of black coffee that she put in front of Evan. "You have to start from the beginning or the poor boy is gonna be confused as hell."

The plate was full of three eggs, two huge sausage links, some bacon and a few slices of homemade bread. It smelled fantastic. Evan couldn't remember ever being this hungry. He proceeded to shovel the food in his face.

Mee-maw pulled up a chair and leaned her cane against the Formica table top. She watched Evan shovel the food in his face with a bemused smile. As he was about finished she began. "You can call me Mother Siobahn."

Evan looked at her between gulps of black coffee. She wasn't hunched over anymore and the years seemed to melt from her face. Her voice was now young and melodic and absent the cackle and deep woods accent that Evan had first heard. Her blue eyes pierced his, as if she was trying to speak to depths of his soul that he hadn't found yet. When she spoke it seemed to demand his full attention.

"This is going to be a little long, boy. Just bear with me and lend me some time. In the beginning of all things, the beginning of the cosmos, there were three forces. The wyld, the weaver and the wyrm. The wyld was the pure force of creation, raw, random and powerful. The weaver took this creation and spun it, organized it, put it into order. The wyrm stood by as a force of balance. When the wyld created too much, when the weaver spun too much, the wyrm stepped in and destroyed. Tipped the scales back to even. Keeping balance and order among the cosmos. From this, our sweet mother, Mother Earth, Gaia was born. She was sweet and good and decided to carry all creation.

The seers, shaman and medicine men aren't sure when but sometime in the beginning the wyrm went insane. Some say the wyrm became caught in the weaver's web. Some say the wyrm went insane trying to keep balance between two forces that were too great. It doesn't matter. The wyrm became buried in the depths of Gaia and was thrashing about. Every bad thought, every wrong idea spewed forth onto Gaia's surface. These evil thoughts and ideas became evil beings and evil deeds.

Gaia could not stand for this. She wanted all of her creations, all of her life to be happy. She took her strongest creatures and strongest men and made them into beings that could change shapes back and forth between. Of all of these, the wolves and men were the strongest. Of this, the Garou was born. The moon, sweet Luna, granted us our rage. The sun, Helios, he let us slip into the spirit world when we need to gain power from the otherworldly. This is what you are. This is the lineage you were born into.

I see the look on your face now, boy. You don't believe me. That's ok. You will.

We, the Garou, felt we were the strongest, so we decided to shoulder more than our share of the burden of protecting our great Mother. We still feel the pain of our arrogance to this day. When the settlements of men grew too big for our liking we culled them. We came in the night and killed their old, their sick, their young. Man is still afraid of us today. The fear is burned into their very being. They know what darkness lurks in the woods at night. What monsters hide in the behind the trees. This is why when they go into the great places of nature they carry guns, weapons and lights. This is why they seek to destroy the great forests. This is why they still hunt wolves. This is why they break down in hysterics when they see the crinos form, the war form, the form that's half man, half wolf, and all death.

We hunted the other changing breeds as well. We deemed them unworthy of doing Gaia's work. They weren't strong enough. They weren't fast enough. They weren't us. What is left of their races refuses to even speak to us this day. Most will attack us on sight.

We didn't always just attack those different from us. Sometimes we warred with each other. We fought over Scotland and Ireland. We fought over land in Russia and China. And when my ancestors first came here we fought with yours. We stole their land, gave them disease, took their places of power for our own and threw them onto the worst patches of land we could find.

We didn't know then what we do now. We didn't know that the wyrm was still strong in the belly of Gaia and it was whispering in our ear. We didn't know we had been listening for way too long. Now look what we have wrought. More of the great forests disappear every day. Factories pump foul smoke into our skies. Sewers belch foul toxins into our rivers and streams. Children are abused and starve. Animals are hunted to extinction.

There are not as many of us as there should be. We have ourselves to blame for that. But there are enough of us to make a difference. Enough of us are still here to fight. Our claws are still sharp enough. We still have enough rage. The spirits still speak to us. We can take back this place from the wyrm and send its minions from these hills."

The woman Dougie had called Mee-maw, the old woman that had called herself Mother Siobahn stood now. Her features were bright and clear. The wrinkles and signs of age were gone from her face. There was no hint of a hunch in her back. In the light her hair seemed more red than silver. She extended a hand. "Will you join us in our war against this ancient beast, Evan Raven? Will you lend your claws, fangs and rage against the enemies of our sweet mother, Gaia?"

Evan sat there for about five ticks of a clock he heard somewhere in the background. It seemed like an eternity. "I've got to get back to Bragg. I've got to go back to the Army." That was all he could manage to say.

The light and air felt like they were sucked out of the room.

Siobahn sighed. She was an old lady again with her hunched back and leaning on her cane. "Douglas, can you please take this poor boy out of my house?"

"Yes 'um."

As she turned to shuffle upstairs on her cane Evan caught a tear rolling down her cheek.

The pickup truck rumbled down the road. Dougie was driving Evan back. Dougie had found some clothes for him. A pair of jeans that were patched and badly worn and a raggedy old flannel shirt that was Dougie's father probably wore judging by its size. They rode for a while in silence. Evan was still trying to digest everything Siobahn had told him.

"Ya know, yer father was a great friend to many of us in these here hills. Mosta us woulda called 'im kin."

"So my father was a werewolf? He could turn into a huge wolf beast thing?" Evan replied.

"Nah, t'ain't like that. Ya see, the Garou blood runs in family lines. It skips generations now and again. He had enough of the blood in 'im to be able to see us for whats we really is. In all our forms and all. But he didn't have enough of the blood to do any changing. Every once in a while it pops up unexpected like." Dougie nodded Evan's direction. "I reckon he suspected you of havin' enough of it. Its jus' too bad your mother kept ya away from us fer so long."

"My mother was an abusive, alcoholic bitch. My grandmother made off with me when I was young."

A sad look crossed Dougie's face. "It's a shame. I see it all the time way up over yonder. Boys like those two that messed with yer pops. Some Garou use that five dollar word when talkin' 'bout' 'em and call 'em _formori_. Me? I jus' call 'em evil. Parent's beat 'im, holler at 'im all the damn time, make 'im drink bad shine, and lay with their own kin. Poisons them right down to their soul. When they finally come out o' dem hills they stink of the wyrm something fierce. And they ain't got nothin' on the mind but doin' more bad in this world and spreadin' hurt. I reckon it's a good thing your gramma did what she did. Looks like she saved ye from something pretty awful."

"Why did Mother Siobhan's voice change when she was talking to me? I swear she looked…different," Evan asked, eager to change the subject.

Dougie chuckled. "She has a gift fer doin' that. She reaches back and kinda talks to our ancestors. They give her the power to inspire, to talk right deep to the soul of a man. See, our ancestors came to these hills way back when. They was all Irish and Scottish. I reckon they only knew how to do a few things; drinkin', fightin', and how to talk the pants off o' anyone. My Mee-maw has still got it."

"Seems not a day goes by here that I see something I have a hard time wrapping my head around."

Dougie laughed and shrugged. "It's always been that way up in these hills. Long as I can remember. You get used to it."

Evan shook his head. "I'm not sure if I want to. I want to get back to Bragg. Things are simple there. You get up in the morning and you know what's going to happen. And if something different happens someone is telling you how to handle it. Go here and do this. Stand here and guard this. It's easy."

"Well, I may be just a simple boy from the hills and I don't know that much 'bout things outside o' here. But one of the things I do know is that things that are easy are rarely worth doing."

The look on Evan's face showed that Dougie's last statement struck a chord. Evan's words still said otherwise. "I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be a cosmic warrior for Mother Earth or whatever the hell it is you guys are doing. I don't want to be a giant wolf man thing."

The truck cleared the ridgeline and began the descent into the cove Evan had made home for the last few days. "I'm going to give ya nickels worth of free advice, my friend." The truck came to a stop in front of his father's place. "Now that you've changed it's going to be hard to be around normal, god-fearin' folk. The scared part o' man in 'em can smell that beast in ya that's right under the surface. People will want nothin' to do wit ya."

"People been wanting nothing to do with me most of my life, Dougie." Evan patted him on the shoulder and shook his hand. He hopped back down from the cab of the truck.

"If ya happen' to change yer mind there's gunna be a lil' meetin' tonight with a few o' us. We call 'em moots." Dougie was talking to him through the open truck windows. "Lot's to talk about these days. Yer father's passin' and the means o' such are gonna be talked about. I'm sure Jeb an' Isiah's kin are gonna be out lookin' fer a little retribution. Blood for blood an' all. Smarter folk than me 'n you gotta come up wit' a plan for dealin' with them."

"I'm sure you'll get along fine without me," Evan smiled and leaned up against the truck door. "I plan to be out of here tomorrow morning and on a flight by the afternoon. Thanks for everything Dougie. I owe you one."

"When you head down in to town be careful. That sheriff don't take to kindly to our kind. He's awful crooked too. So crooked that he could swallow a nail and spit up a corkscrew."

Evan laughed and waved as he headed back towards the house. He waved back as he heard the sound of the truck making its way back up the road.

Dougie had been as good as his word. The signs of the struggle from the night before were all but gone. The dirt on his father's graved had been piled back on top of his casket under the tree. There was still some blood on the side of the house and the grass but nothing a good rain wouldn't take care of.

Evan stepped back in to the house. He changed out of the ratty hand me downs and back into some boots, jeans without holes and a plain white shirt. He poured a huge glass of sweet tea from the fridge into a mason jar. He topped it off with a fat two finger pour of the moonshine Sean had dropped off a few days prior. Shit, that felt like forever ago at this point. He wasn't a fan of alcohol but this morning he kind of felt like he had earned a drink. One time in high school he and his buddies pooled their cash and got a bottle of vodka. They had gone out in the woods, built a fire and drank the whole thing. They staggered back into his grandmother's house in the early morning hours acting like some drunken fools. The old lady had obviously heard them. She woke them all up at six am, kicked his friends out and made him do menial labor in the backyard till he threw up and almost passed out. Between his mother's rampant alcoholism and his Native American heritage he was always worried about becoming just another drunk. That day had been the last time he touched the stuff till today.

He sat on the porch sipping his hard tea and thinking about what Mother Siobhan had told him. A big part of it made sense to him. That was what bothered him. It was like she had been talking to a part of him he had never dealt with. He had always fought to keep his temper under control. In basic training it had been easy enough. Don't make any dumb mistakes and the Drill Sergeants really didn't know who you were. Just don't stand out and no one will get in your face. One of his Drill Sergeants didn't even know his name till graduation. Airborne school had been a little more of a challenge. He had been fine until the last week when they had to do five jumps. The first time that door opened on a plane that was still in air he had almost lost it. He saw the cars and trees on the ground screaming by and felt the fear grab him straight in the gut. He swallowed it down and put that fear away in a box in his head. He exited the aircraft without an issue. The other four weren't a problem after that. But when he walked out of the house a few nights ago and saw those two hicks messing with his father's corpse there had been no stopping it. All the years of his repressed rage had rolled forth from behind the broken damn that had been his self-restraint.

He still marveled at how that had felt. He had never felt so strong or so fast. Or so powerful. And he had never felt so _right_. Some part of him felt a small measure of righteousness when he separated that man's head from his body. The satisfaction of ripping out that motely furred freaks throat had been beyond anything he had enjoyed in his life.

But is that really what he was? A huge bipedal wolf killing machine that was the rage incarnate of Mother Earth? That just sounded like a really fucked up episode of Captain Planet to him. All this crap he went through in his life was due to some great cosmic evil entity? Evan didn't buy that. People did bad shit because they either liked doing it or they didn't know better. It was as simple as that. The ones that liked it were crazy. The ones that didn't know better were dumb. There was no great force pulling on the strings like some messed up puppeteer on an evil marionette.

But what if this whole thing was his true calling? What if this was the purpose, the calling he had been searching for his entire life? That would be some serious shit. No more army, no more paychecks on the first and fifteenth, just this house out in the woods and tons of things to hunt and kill. He was sure Dougie (maybe?) or Siobhan could teach him how to change into any of those forms when he wanted. Then he could run through the hills and mountains all he wanted. Howl all he wanted. Rage all he wanted.

What was the deal with what Nola showed him? Thinking about it again, it was obvious she had wanted some kind of reaction. She had gotten part of what she had wanted. But had she wanted more? Had she wanted him to lose control and "wolf-out" on the armed guards? Who knew with her? She was about as easy to read as Ulysses by James Joyce. Greatest novel written my ass, who gets through that whole thing?

Evan shook his head. The booze must be sneaking up on him. Whatever this moonshine was, it was strong. He had no idea what the hell was going on here but he wanted no part of it. He just wanted to go back to Bragg. Shit was easy there. Show up to formation on time, wearing right uniform and your day was going to be pretty simple. If he stayed here things would rarely be simple as a giant wolf-man thing. Evan laughed to himself. He was beginning to find his own thoughts hilarious.

He wasn't sure when but he fell asleep on the front porch. The combination of the early morning sun warming his face and the booze was too strong for a man who had seen just a little too much in the last few days. He began to dream.

 _He was standing next to a fire pit that was blazing hard against the winter winds. The fire pit was in the center of a semi-circle of wooden log houses. There was about a foot of fresh snow on the ground and two men were by the fire. Both were clad in furs against the snow and wind. One was older and stooped. The other was young, tall, muscled and proud. Both seemed like ethnic Cherokee to Evan. The older man was speaking to the younger._

 _"I am sorry Runs-with-Stags. The Great Mother did not give you enough of the gift. You will never be able to fight alongside your brother in the light of the moon."_

 _The young one was angry, indignant. He spat in the snow. "I am twice the warrior my brother is. All in the tribe know this. Why does he get this great gift and I do not?"_

 _"Such is the way of our Great Mother and her sister the moon. They choose roles for us all in this world. It is all we can do to fill them." The old medicine man turned toward Evan and looked directly at him. "They choose roles for us all in the world. It is all we can do to fill them."_

 _Evan was flying now. He was a great falcon, wings spread against the sky and flying low over the green growth of spring. The mountains and hills of Appalachia spread out before him. To his left another falcon was flying. The bird turned and spoke to him with the Old Man's voice. "Runs-with-Stags has always struggled against the weight our Great Mother would have him carry." They circled low over the tree tops. The old falcon seemed to be searching for something. "When he was young he was never the fastest. Never the strongest. Never a good warrior. He ran and trained until he was. But all his work was for nothing. The blood of the Garou runs deep in his ancestors. His brother and his father both had the gift to change. When they both died in battle against a great wyrm beast he left the tribe for many moons. He lived away from us and screamed and raged at the moon every night. Why did she not listen to him?"_

 _The two falcons circled around a clearing up ahead. There the young Cherokee was there with his head bent over a small fire in prayer and sorrow. Evan noticed a small white wolf on the edge on the clearing. The wolf was so white it looked almost silver. The two falcons circled once more and landed on a nearby tree limb to observe._

 _"The Great Mother doesn't always give us the gifts we want," The Old Man said. "She gives us the gifts we need. The things we are meant for." The white wolf moved closer and closer to the young brave. It danced back and forth lightly, testing the situation and his awareness. His head was hung and he didn't notice the wolf's approach. The wolf went right up to the Cherokee's face and licked it with its rough tongue._  
 _The young brave was startled and stood up full of anger. Who was this wolf to interrupt his great sorrow? He chased after it around the clearing first with a bow then tomahawk and knife. Every time he drew close the wolf danced away easily with its playful and mischievous nature. After hours of this the young brave collapsed in the clearing and let out a loud, angry sob. It was no wonder to him that his father and brother had been killed and he wasn't worth of the gift of changing. He couldn't even catch a young wolf on his own._

 _As he lay there sobbing the wolf cocked its head to the side. Then it changed before their eyes into a woman. She was young and pretty. She was small of stature with long silvery hair, fine features and small full breasts. She was fully nude. She walked toward the sad young man, lifted him off of the ground and embraced him. The embrace was slightly awkward as if she didn't have much practice with it but still full of comfort and passion. Then she kissed him. It was a full and long kiss that displayed passion only usually found among the beasts._

 _Time sped by before their eyes. The young brave built a house in the clearing and took the white wolf woman as his wife. Her belly grew full and she gave birth to a boy. One morning, when the boy cub was old enough to survive without her milk, she turned back into a wolf and ran back into the forest from which she came._

 _At first the Brave was angry and sad. How could she leave him like this? Why was he meant to suffer so? Why had he earned all this pain? Then he looked into the eyes of his young son. He knew what he must do. He grabbed what supplies he needed and started walking back towards his tribe with his young son in tow._

 _The falcon turned and looked at Evan again. "She gives us the things we are meant for."_

Evan awoke to someone shaking him on the shoulder. "Hey, you alright man?" Evan opened his eyes to see Sean Husk looking down at him, obviously a little concerned.

Evan rubbed his head. It was pounding. "Yeah….yeah. Just had a little of the shine mixed in with some tea. Knocked me right on my ass." He tried to stand, staggered and knocked over the remnants of his mason jar on the front porch. He sat back down.

Sean chuckled. "That shine'll do it to ya every time. Strong stuff, 'specially for city folk like you."

Evan rubbed his eyes. "What's up Sean? What's going on?"

Sean took a few steps back and pulled his hat off, holding it in front of him. "Well, I kinda need some help with something."

"Yeah?"

"Well, this area of the country is kinda like what they call a food desert. Nearest grocery store is about sixty miles down the road. Most folks don't want to or can't make it down there to buy decent groceries. Most people just buy garbage kinda food down at the gas station in town."

"Ok…" Evan wondered where this was going.

"So your pops and I started teaching some of the locals how to farm things besides tobacco so they could eat right. We been doin' pretty well lately and I got some extra groceries I was gonna drop off at the rez. I know there's plenty up there that could use them."

"Ok, so?"

"Last time I went up there without your father they gave me a really hard time." Sean took half a step back, and half turned his head in embarrassment.

"Hard time how?"

"Slapped me around, called me names, threw my groceries I was gonna give out in the dirt."

Before Sean could finish Evan was already walking to Sean's truck and climbing in. "Let's go. And let's make this quick. Sun's going down and I want to cook a steak before it's dark out."


End file.
